Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (12A)
Verdict: Monstrously pointless
At the end of a week of football internationals, the nation's multiplexes welcome Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire. This seems fitting, somehow. On paper, Godzilla and Kong are a formidable attacking partnership, but the reality is that they're not team players.
A harsher reality is that Adam Wingard's film is not very good. It's a sequel to the same director's Godzilla v Kong (2021), which wasn't much cop, either, but at least it didn't make a monkey out of its audience.
Godzilla (left) and King Kong (right) are a formidable attacking partnership, but they're not team players
Rebecca Hall as Dr. Ilene Andrews and Kaylee Hottle as Jia. The harsh reality is that Adam Wingard's film is not very good. It's a sequel to the same director's Godzilla v Kong (2021), which wasn't much cop, either, but at least it didn't make a monkey out of its audience
The computer-generated effects are workaday at best. It rapidly becomes exceptionally dull. This is a film largely devoid of thrills, tension, fun and even basic coherence
This time we're expected to swallow a load of pseudo-scientific gobbledygook, spouted by Rebecca Hall and Dan Stevens — almost as if they understand what they're talking about when they bang on about dorsal plates and plasma readings — basically filling time before the next thunderous punch-up between snarling CGI beasts.
It rapidly becomes exceptionally dull. This is a film largely devoid of thrills, tension, fun and even basic coherence.
The computer-generated effects are workaday at best, and the story's principal baddie, a gigantic primate capable of wiping the floor even with the mighty Kong, merely reminded me of a super-sized King Louie, The Jungle Book's rascally jungle VIP.
What passes for a narrative has Kong lumbering around the primordial paradise known as Hollow Earth, which looks like it rose from Jurassic Park's cutting-room floor, while Godzilla kicks off in the Eternal City, smashing what's left of the Colosseum with one misplaced stamp of a great scaly foot.
Whose idea it was to place him in Rome I cannot say, but evidently someone with a distaste for ancient monuments plotted this film, because he and Kong later turn up in Cairo in Egypt, inconsiderately bumping into the pyramids.
What passes for a narrative has Kong lumbering around the primordial paradise known as Hollow Earth, which looks like it rose from Jurassic Park's cutting-room floor, while Godzilla kicks off in the Eternal City, smashing what's left of the Colosseum with one misplaced stamp of a great scaly foot
Skar King - the villain of the film. The story's principal baddie, a gigantic primate capable of wiping the floor even with the mighty Kong, merely reminded me of a super-sized King Louie, The Jungle Book's rascally jungle VIP
Meanwhile, Dr Ilene Andrews (Hall) and her two tiresome wisecracking pals, Trapper (Stevens) and Bernie (Brian Tyree Henry), gradually work out that her adopted daughter, Jia (Kaylee Hottle), is not just the only surviving member of the indigenous Iwi tribe from Skull Island, whence Kong originates; or the only human being who can converse with the big guy and stop him going ape.
No, the fearless mute teenager is also the only person who can infiltrate another lost civilisation and raise a messianic monster (OK, a massive bat) from its slumbers, in time to help both our clumsy globetrotters as they unite to defeat King Louie.
For some reason this almighty scrap takes place in Rio de Janeiro. Maybe the producers had an eye on the South American box-office. Whatever, while everything goes nuts in Brazil, you will almost certainly wonder why you bothered.
